Disruptive technologies are set to remold the FS workforce with automation and augmentation over the next five to 10 years. The big question: Is your organization future-ready? If you haven’t begun preparing your workforce or updating your learning platforms, the answer is likely ‘no’.  

In my last post, I shared the key habits needed to create a mindful learning experience for employees. Continuing with this series on revamping learning in FS, today’s post focuses on the importance of reskilling—or new–skilling—to build and empower a future-ready workforce, and how to scale up it up in a digital landscape constantly in flux.  

FS executives need to read the room. 

As technology continues to evolve at break-neck speed, it’s imperative for FS executives to read the room. They have a multi-generational workforce—most of whom are more digitally mature than their organizations—and despite knowing AI will be integral to market differentiation, the majority admit that only one in four  employees are ready to work with intelligent technologies. 

By 2025, 75% of the FS workforce will be millennials, a generation ready to learn and work with new technologies. But only 27% of banks and insurers have adapted their learning platforms and jobs to accommodate the automation and augmentation needed for growth.  

Organizations need to respond positively and deliberately to disruption by designing the jobs, skills and tasks of the future.  

Organizations need to innovate and invest to create agility and growth.  

Rather than simply displacing people, new technologies are creating opportunities that require new skills, tools and structures; opportunities that allow people to create more value for both themselves and the organization. New roles in FS include brand ambassador, social media manager and personal client advisor, among many others—and let’s not forget integral roles needed for the training and maintenance of new tech.  

High-growth companies are over three times more likely to invest in new-skilling to build a competitive advantage. As an example, AT&T—which employs one of the largest workforces in the world—stepped up for its employees with the bold move to commit $1 billion to skill up its workforce by 2020. 

AT&T stayed ahead of the curve by taking three important steps to future-ready its employees: it ignited a workforce strategy discussion, pivoted the workforce, and most importantly, it recognized the need to scale up the skills needed for the future. 

Five ways to scale up new–skilling in FS.  

• Prioritize skills for development. Strike a balance between technical, judgment, and social skills. 
• Target new–skilling. Assess and cater to different levels of skills and willingness to learn.  
• Protect humans from displacement from automation to the extent possible. Create a culture of self-directed, continuous learning that empowers people to develop the new skills and capabilities they need to thrive in a changing world. 
• Structure learning for employees’ busy lives. Techniques such as microlearning can help cultivate lifelong learning in the workforce. 
• Leverage the new generation of experiential learning tools and technologies. Experiential learning is active, immersive, and based on real-world experiences. 

The last bullet highlights a key how of revamping learning in FS, as organizations can and should use new technologies to address compliance training. AI and experiential learning bring new opportunities and skills, but also new rules. Compliance has changed, and we’ll explore how to create value from everyone’s ‘favourite’ training in my next post.  

Until then, you can contact me here or on Twitter (@knott_nic) to find out more on mindful learning or digital HR in financial services. 

To learn more, read “Building the bank board’s technology skills”.